InfoWorld's Serdar Yegulalp provides an in-depth tutorial on how he rooted and upgraded his Motorola Cliq XT, one of many Android phones made infamous for not receiving further Android updates beyond 1.5. 'It turned out to be quite an odyssey, with twists and turns I describe here in order to help those who wish to embark on a similar journey,' Yegulalp writes. 'Was it worth the trouble? Yes, in the sense that learning how to jailbreak your own phone is a valuable skill, and I got much more functionality out of the Cliq, when I was expecting to simply junk it. '

I got a Google Nexus One that has always run great and continues to receive updates. What is so difficult about getting a Phone which is on the top of the list as far as devices supported directly by google?

Besides money, the carrier. Europe doesn't have this problem, but in the US the Nexus would have to be on AT&T (or T-mobile, now bought by AT&T), whereas Verizon, who runs an entirely different network built on different tech, has much better coverage (at least on the east coast where I live). Since I tend to travel out in the middle of nowhere, getting a signal > timely updates.